Page 11: of Marine Technology Magazine (April 2005)

After a test mission in unusually ice-
free seas in front of the face of the gla-
cier, they started with three 60km for-
ays under the floating glacier and
extended the length of missions to
110km round-trip. In all, a distance of
over 500km beneath the ice was stud-
ied.

Using its sonar, the Autosub picks its
way through the water, while creating
a 3D map that the scientists will use to
determine where and how the warmth
of the ocean waters drives melting of
the glacier base.
"There is still much work to be
done on the processing of the data,"
said Adrian Jenkins, "but the picture
we should get of the ocean beneath
the glacier will be unprecedented in its
extent and detail. It should help us
answer critical questions about the
role played by the ocean in driving the
ongoing thinning of the glacier."

The lead U.S. researcher on the
project, Stan Jacobs, is studying the

Pine Island Glacier with International

Polar Year (IPY) funding from the

National Science Foundation (NSF).

One of the IPY research goals is to
better understand the dynamics of the
world's massive ice sheets, including
the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

If this were to melt completely global
sea levels would rise significantly. The
most recent report of the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change (IPCC) noted that because so
little is understood about ice-sheet
behavior it is difficult to predict how
ice sheets will contribute to sea level
rise in a warming world. The behavior
of ice sheets the IPCC report said is
one of the major uncertainties in pre-
dicting exactly how the warming of
the global will affect human popula-
tions.